Royalist Rebel, the story of Elizabeth Murray
by Anita Seymour Whilst searching for a strong female protagonist from the 17th Century on whom to base my latest novel, I discovered one practically on my own doorstep. At the time I lived around the corner to Ham House, a stunning red brick Jacobean mansion on the River Thames, the home of Elizabeth Murray, Lady Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale. Her second husband, John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, was one of Charles II’s Cabal ministry and between he and Elizabeth, turned Ham into a palace fit for their king. Bishop Burnet, described by Elizabeth’s biographer, Doreen Cripps as ‘that spiteful old busybody’, left a sketch of her character coloured with his prejudice and personal malice. She was a woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts. She had a wonderful quickness of apprehension, and an amazing vivacity in conversation. She had studied not only divinity and history, but mathematics and philosophy. She was violent in every thing she set about, a violent friend, but a much ...